Voice/Over: A Memoir Breakout in 7 Movies

Voice/Over: A Memoir Breakout in 7 Movies opens in the rural American west, following Faith Adiele’s whimsical coming of age as the only multiracial girl in a Nordic immigrant family obsessed with movies and voting. Set on one particular infamous election day, the formally-inventive memoir plays with the screenplay form, casting family members as characters in iconic American movies. Striking visual collages establish her union organizer grandfather, Finland’s reindeer battalions, James Bond, The Magnificent Seven, and others as unlikely models in Faith’s quest for heroism, identity and the American dream.

When read together with Her Voice (released simultaneously) Voice/Over provides an innovative ＂breakout＂ performative, a supplemental yet stand-alone praxis that expands the vision of the memoir genre (against capital-＂H＂ History and capital- ＂T＂ Truth) beyond the singular, breaking free of convention, inclusive of hybrid, multiple, always personal/political, and ever-expanding genre/s.

FAITH ADIELE writes and speaks about race, culture and travel. She is author of Meeting Faith, a memoir about ordaining as Thailand’s first Black Buddhist nun that won the PEN Open Book Award and routinely appears on travel listicles. Her media credits include Sleep Stories (CALM app), two episodes of A World of Calm (HBOMax), and the documentary My Journey Home (PBS), about finding her family in Nigeria. Founder of the nation’s first writing workshop for travelers of color, she teaches at California College of the Arts and leads writing workshops around the world.